Free Up From Hell by David Drake

 
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    I led my troop of foragers into the Crow’s camp at midmorning, singing about Lillia from Massillia who could service a squadron—and their horses. We’d held up just out of sight to primp, braid our hair, and put on a bright sash or a gold torque. Most of my troopers were common warriors, but our incidental pickings let them dress like nobles.
    Galo, my mother’s sister’s son, was calling the verses from the driver’s bench of the cart full of loot we’d taken from the villa we’d sacked two nights before. The woman we’d taken at that place sat beside Galo, proud as a queen. She looked like a scarlet butterfly perched beside a cheerful toad.
    Some foragers come in whooping and hollering, but that spooks the herd they’re driving. My boys took care of business first, and anybody who didn’t learn that right quick got the stuffing knocked out of him before I booted him from the troop.
    â€œIf you’re good enough to ride with Taranis,” they said in the Crow’s war band, “you’re good enough to ride back from Hell!”
    Well, my boys say that, anyway. The rest call us cocky bastards, but they know that we generally bring in as much food as any two of the other foraging troops. Galo has an instinct for finding things.
    Food was going to be even more important to the war band if the Crow decided to make an example of Caere. The city had good walls, and we might have to sit here till Esus the Wise knew when.
    The line warriors might, that is. We foragers would be miles out from the crowds and the stink.
    It had been raining off and on for a month. The ground had been soft when the Crow had set up here before I left on this drive. Now it was a bog, and even the few latrines that the band had dug were flooded out.
    I hate marching camps. I could give lots of reasons why I prefer to lead foragers rather than a wing of the cavalry, but that’s the real one.
    I checked to see where the Crow’s winged standard stood, raised on a high pole. It was a larger duplicate of the bronze rig on his helmet.
    â€œTake charge of the billeting, Galo,” I said as I dismounted. “I’ll be back as soon as I report to the chief.”
    â€œWe’ll save you a jar of the good stuff, Top!” Matisco said.
    I tramped through the camp, exchanging greetings with the nobles I met and nodding to warriors who bowed to me. In the field with my boys there’s no nonsense about “yes, lord,” and “as you wish, lord,” but here it has to be different. I left Galo in charge in camp when I was gone, like now, because he had the rank to protect the boys even though his leg was twisted and he couldn’t walk right.
    Mind, my troopers knew to hop it when I gave an order.
    The Crow’s tent was pitched on a little hill, but the swale I had to cross to reach it was downstream of one of the abattoirs. I’d walked through worse places, but it didn’t make me like the camp any better than I had before.
    The Crow was with three of his thousand-chiefs, but when a servant whispered to him he turned to clasp arms with me. “Taranis!” he said. “Good pickings this time?”
    The javelin in my left hand was so much a part of me in the field that I’d forgotten I held it until now. Embarrassed, I turned it to point down along my thigh.
    â€œGood enough, Chief,” I said. “Twenty oxen, a couple hundred sheep and goats. There were a few horses too, though nothing special that way.”
    â€œAny slaves?” asked Segolestes. He’d always struck me as greedy, but he wasn’t a bad sort. Dubnoreix was the only thousand-chief I didn’t have any use for.
    I shrugged. “Twenty or so to drive the carts and badger the herd in,” I said. “Any more would’ve been just useless mouths till we got far enough south to sell them to the Greeks.”
    I looked back at the Crow—looked up at